President Meets With Northern Wisconsin Council of Carpenters
Remarks by the President to the Northern Wisconsin Council of Carpenters
Northern Wisconsin Council of Carpenters Training Center
Kaukauna, Wisconsin

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you
all. I brought the A-Team with me. (Laughter.) I
tell you, I can't tell you how proud I am of the job that Laura is
doing. (Applause.) Both of us are thrilled to be
back in the great state of Wisconsin -- (applause) -- in the
neighborhood of the mighty Green Bay
Packers. (Applause.) I'm old enough to remember
the Ice Bowl -- (laughter) -- but I shouldn't bring up a sore subject
-- (laughter) -- well, I mean, a fine
subject. (Laughter.) At any rate, we're thrilled
to be here.

Doug, I want to thank you for a couple of
things. First of all, I want to thank you for your
leadership. Doug is a plain-spoken fellow. There's no
question where he stands. (Laughter.) Which is
good. There's also no question of where his heart is, and
his heart is with the working men and women of the country and I
appreciate that, Doug. (Applause.)

There are a lot of talkers in Washington,
D.C., a lot of fancy footwork people. But there's also some
doers. And Doug puts his mind to getting something done, he
can get it done. And, as he said, sometimes we agree,
sometimes we don't. But I will tell you, we'll always answer
his phone; we'll always listen to what he has to say.

He brought a severe problem to my
administration that relates to the carpenters and hard working people
of America. It had to do with pension benefits, that the
pension plans weren't fair for the carpenters and for the working
people. So we sat down with Doug and his folks and worked
with some members of Congress; and part of the tax relief plan that we
got passed is a part that Doug had a lot to do with, which is pension
reform, 401(k) reform, IRA reform -- reform that's good for everybody
in America who works with their hands, who works every single day.

Doug McCarron is a can-do guy and I'm
honored to call him friend and I'm honored to be able to work with him
on behalf of the working people of America. Thank you,
sir. (Applause.)

I want to thank Jim Moore. I
want to thank old Jim Moore. (Laughter and
applause.) First person he introduced me to was his wife,
and the second person he introduced me to was his
mother. (Laughter.) Which reminds me of one of my
favorite stories about my mother.

I had just been elected Governor of
Texas. Laura and I were in a central Texas town called
Fredericksburg, Texas. Mother and dad were going to be there
to pay homage to the folks that had fought in the Pacific Theater in
World War II. And, by the way, all the World War II vets not
only deserve a sense of thanks from us, but I'm proud to announce we're
going to build a World War II memorial in Washington,
D.C. (Applause.)

At any rate, you may relate to this story,
Jim. I got up and I said, welcome to central Texas, to my
dad, and everybody gave me a nice round of applause and gave him a nice
round of applause. And I said, it's also a privilege to
welcome my mother. And before I could get the words out of
my mouth, people went wild. (Laughter.) And I
said, mother, it's clear the people of central Texas still love you and
so do I -- but you're still telling me what to do, after 50
years. (Laughter.)

And a guy in a cowboy hat strode right out
in the middle of Main Street, Fredericksburg, and he said, and you
better listen to her, too, boy. (Laughter and
applause.) I asked Jim if he was listening to Evelyn -- your
mother's name is Evelyn? Yes, he said he's still listening
to Evelyn. (Laughter.) I'm still listening to
Bar. (Laughter.)

I want to thank Elaine for traveling with
me, too. Elaine is the Secretary of Labor, she's doing a
fabulous job. (Applause.) There is another member
of my Cabinet who isn't here, but comes from the great state of
Wisconsin, is doing a fabulous job -- you trained him well -- and
that's Tommy Thompson. (Applause.)

Tommy has been replaced by a good man, and
he's with us today, the Governor of the great state of Wisconsin, Scott
McCallum and his wife, Laurie. Thank you,
Scott. (Applause.)

You sent a good congressman from here up
to Washington. He's a good, solid fellow. He's
down to earth, he cares deeply about the folks in his district in
Wisconsin, and that's Mark Green. (Applause.)

As well traveling with us today, and we're
honored to have him with us, is a fine fellow as well. He's
got a lot of experience in the Congress, he represents the folks in his
district well, from Wisconsin, that's Tom Petri. Thank you,
Tom, for coming. I appreciate it. (Applause.)

And I want to thank you all for coming
today. Thanks for taking time out of your Labor Day to come
and say hello to Laura and me. We are honored to be
here. We're honored to be able to deliver a Labor Day
message here in Wisconsin, particularly in the midst of -- in a hall of
a group of hard-working folks that really make America go.

Labor Day, as Doug mentioned, is a day in
which we celebrate truly one of the great strengths of the country --
and that's the working people of America. The thing that
makes our nation unique is that American people work hard to provide
for their families. They're not afraid of hard work. They
welcome hard work. The productivity of America is high
because of the working people.

And today our nation takes a moment to say
thanks, thanks for what all you do; thanks for those who are on the --
who carry a hammer; thanks for the police; thanks for the school
teachers -- (applause) -- thanks for the fire fighters; thanks to
people from all walks of life who work all across our
country. It's fitting we honor the strength of America.

I must say that our life in Washington is
exciting. It's been a fantastic eight
months. We've got some problems on the
horizon. One of my jobs is not to shirk problems, it's to
deal with them. And on this Labor Day, I've got to tell you,
I'm concerned about working families. I'm concerned our
economy is not as strong as it should be.

For the past 12 months our growth in our
economy has been anemic, at best. It's been a paltry 1
percent over 12 months. That's not good enough for
America. You know, they talk about unemployment statistics,
and they're relatively good so far. But if you've been laid
off of work, you're 100 percent unemployed, and I worry about
it. I worry about the families affected. I'm
concerned about the children whose dad or mom may not be able to find
work right now.

And I intend to do something about
it. I intend -- and it started with doing something strong
for our economy. And that's taking your money and sending it
back to where it belongs, the taxpayers of America. (Applause.)

Make no mistake about it -- make no
mistake about it: tax relief was the right thing to do at
the right time. (Applause.) The rebate checks are
now hitting; people have got more money to spend or invest, the very
things needed to make sure that we sustain economic vitality and
growth.

There are some second-guessers in
Washington. There are folks who on the one hand wish they
had more money to spend. But I'm going to tell you, we've
got ample money in Washington, D.C. to spend if we set our
priorities. If we do what you do on a regular basis -- say,
here's my budget, here are the priorities. If Washington
would only prioritize, we've got plenty of money to spend in
Washington, D.C. (Applause.)

Like any piece of policy, there will be
second-guessers, and you'll hear them. They'll say, oh, we
shouldn't have had tax relief. My question to them is, do
they want to raise taxes? My question to the critics is, if
you're against tax relief, does that mean you're for now raising
peoples' taxes? The worst thing that could happen to our
economy, the absolute worst thing, is to raise the taxes on the working
people. (Applause.)

There is a fundamental difference of
opinion in Washington, and it starts with folks in Washington
forgetting whose money we're spending. All that money is not
the government's money; it's the working people's money. (Applause.)

It's the right thing at the right time to
make sure our economy grows. And even though people are hurting today
-- and I know they are -- I'm confident in the basic underpinnings of
the American economy. I'm confident in the productivity
levels of our people. I'm confident that we'll
recover. I'm confident that we'll have sustained
growth. And I'm confident in the values, the hard work and
values that make our nation -- the values of hard work that make our
nation unique.

There's another issue that we've been
working on that I want to talk to you about that's incredibly important
for you and your jobs, and that's energy. We don't have
enough of it. We import a lot of energy from parts of the
world that -- that are unstable. And we need more energy,
and we need to do a better job of conserving the energy we
have. And I applaud the conservation efforts that take place
all across America.

And we're doing our part at the federal
level. We've told the military to increase savings of
energy. We're beginning to use more cost-effective
technologies to save energy. But the thing I appreciate Doug
and the people who've got common sense in Washington, D.C., is they
also understand that we need to find energy in an environmentally
friendly way. We, for the first time, have got an energy
policy that's supported by members of the unions, because they
understand good energy policy equals good jobs in
America. And that's what we ought to be
asking: how can our people find good
jobs? (Applause.)

Part of a good economic plan is to make
sure we've got a good education policy. And one of the
reasons we came here is because of the training center that's
here. It's good to see a union not only care about health
care or pension benefits or wages, but a union that cares about
educating its work force. This is a thoughtful union, this
is a progressive union, that understands. (Applause.)

So I appreciate what Doug and Jim are
doing and I hope you appreciate what's taking place in Washington when
it comes to educating our children. We're working hard to reform
public education. And let me tell you what the philosophy
behind our reforms are.

The philosophy behind our reforms is
this: we trust the local people to run their own schools; we
trust the people of Wisconsin. (Applause.) I
don't believe in federalizing
education. (Applause.) I know that one size
doesn't fit all when it comes to educating our children.

Now, having said that, I also believe
we've got to challenge what I call the soft bigotry of low
expectations. (Applause.) Now, when you lower the
bar, you're going to get lousy results. We need to raise
standards all across America. And the federal government can
help. The federal government can
help. (Applause.)

And I also believe in
results. I'm a results-oriented person. It seems
like to me it makes sense that if you spend money, you ought to ask the
question, what are the results? If we spend money at the
federal level trying to teach children, we ought to say, can they
learn? And so part of the reform is that we are going to
insist upon strong accountability measures. (Applause.)

It says that states will measure, because
we want to know. We want to know whether or not children can
read or write and add and subtract. That's what we want to
know. That's a fundamental question we ought to be asking
all across America. You in Wisconsin need to be demanding a
return for your taxpayers' money. You ought to be asking the
schools whether or not they're teaching the children to
read. You ought to be demanding they use a curriculum based
upon phonics, so that children can learn. (Applause.)

We got a good bill out of the House, we
got a good bill out of the Senate. And I hope when the
members come back tomorrow, they don't play politics with an education
bill and they get it on my desk so I can sign it so the local folks can
start planning for the school years coming up. (Applause.)

Good tax policy is important for our
country, good energy policy, good education policy. We need
to teach children more than just reading and writing and adding and
subtracting. We need to teach them the right
values. We need to not be
afraid. (Applause.) We need to teach them right
from wrong.

One of the reasons I love coming to a
Labor Day rally is because so many of you brought your
families. And let me tell you one of the great values of
America is our family, family life. (Applause.)

I think that one of my most important jobs
is to remind the moms and dads of America that the most important job,
if you happen to be a -- well, since you are a mom or a dad, one of the
most important jobs you'll ever have is loving your children with all
your heart and all your soul. That that is the most
important way you can make a contribution to our country, is to tell
your children you love them, and not be afraid to teach them the
difference between right and wrong. (Applause.)

I talked about the strength of the country
being the willingness of our folks to work hard. But there's
another strength, too, and that's in the hearts and souls of
Americans. We're a compassionate nation based upon fantastic
values; a nation that's strong because our people are strong; a nation
that's decent because our people are decent. A nation that's
compassionate because we've got folks who will walk right across the
street and say to a neighbor in need, what can I do to
help? It doesn't matter whether you have a union card or not
a union card; you love your neighbor just like you'd like to be loved
yourself, because there's a higher calling amongst many in
America. (Applause.)

Now, on this Labor Day, we've got to
remember the values not only of hard work, but tried and true values of
honoring your mother and dad and telling the truth, bringing integrity
to whatever you do, and loving a neighbor just like you'd like to be
loved yourself.

This is a great land and I'm honored to be
the President of the greatest land on the face of the
earth. I'm honored to be here in
Wisconsin. (Applause.)

Laura and I want to thank you from the
bottom of our hearts for your prayers and your
support. Thank you for coming out today to say hello. May
God bless the American worker and may God bless
America. Thank you very much. God
bless. (Applause.)